Off-page SEO: why it matters and how to improve it
Off-page SEO is an often overlooked but effective way to elevate search engine rankings. This is what it means and how to improve it.
Off-page SEO refers to content posted outside your website that links back to your page. It is vital to improve your brand’s digital notoriety and search rankings. This is what it means and how to improve it.
What is off-page SEO?
Off-page SEO describes strategies implemented outside of your own website to boost its visibility in search engine results. Effective off-page SEO involves leveraging external elements, such as mentions on third-party social media platforms, contributions on partner sites, the publication of branded content in external media, public relations efforts, and other online promotional activities.
These tactics help search engines better understand and trust the content of your website, and enhance its authority and relevance. This improves your site's perceived value to users, contributing significantly to its overall search engine ranking.
Why is off-page SEO important?
Off-page SEO is key because search engines value references from other sites as a sign of authority and relevance. When reputed websites link to yours, it signals to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy, which can lead to a higher ranking in search results.
If a brand publishes an article and then a relevant third party shares it on their social media, this will improve the rank of the brand that first published it.
Thus, the greater the sharing and reposting, the better its ranking in SERP. Why? Since Google sees a brand’s name in relevant external pages, then it will automatically assume that this is a relevant, informative and valuable content website.
On-page SEO vs. Off-page SEO vs Technical SEO
SEO can be categorized into several distinct types, including technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO, each focusing on distinct elements of website enhancement and audience engagement. Understanding these categories is essential for any digital marketer aiming to craft a comprehensive and effective SEO strategy.
On-page SEO
On-Page SEO is essential for helping search engines like Google understand your website's content and determine its value as a search result. Key elements of on-page SEO include creating rich, well-researched content, carefully choosing relevant keywords, and optimizing meta tags such as titles, descriptions, and alt tags. Additionally, factors like page loading speed, the use of high-resolution images, and other visual content play crucial roles in enhancing visibility and user engagement.
Off-page SEO
Off-Page SEO, in contrast, focuses on boosting the website's authority and relevance through external means. This strategy helps search engines recognize the website as important and popular. Effective off-page SEO includes building backlinks from reputable sites and maintaining a powerful presence on social media. These efforts are crucial for portraying the website's significance beyond its own pages. On the other hand, off-page SEO helps web search engines understand why the website is important, popular and relevant.
To improve off-page SEO, digital marketing teams usually focus on the various aspects that occur outside the website, in order to increase their ranking.
Thus, the greater the sharing and reposting, the better its ranking in SERP. Why? Because once Google sees a brand’s name in relevant external pages, then it will automatically assume that this is a relevant, informative and valuable content website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO refers to the process of optimizing the infrastructure of your website so that search engines can crawl and index it more effectively, which is crucial for improving organic rankings. It involves a set of practices that ensure your site meets the technical requirements of modern search engines with the goal of improved organic rankings.
Here are some key aspects of Technical SEO with examples:
Site Speed Optimization: Search engines prioritize sites that load quickly, as faster sites provide a better user experience. Techniques such as optimizing image sizes, leveraging browser caching, and reducing server response times can help.
Mobile-Friendliness: With mobile-first indexing, your site must perform well on mobile devices. Responsive design, where the site adapts to various screen sizes and orientations, is a crucial part of this.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL): Having an SSL certificate for your website is essential. It secures the data transferred between your users and the site, and search engines favor secure websites by ranking them higher.
XML Sitemaps: Sitemaps inform search engines about the pages on your website that are available for crawling. An XML sitemap lists a website’s important pages, making sure search engines can find and crawl them all.
Structured Data Markup: By implementing structured data (Schema.org), you can help search engines understand your site’s content and enhance your search listings with rich snippets, which can improve click-through rates.
Robots.txt: This file tells search engine crawlers which pages or sections of your site should not be crawled. Properly configuring this file is crucial to prevent search engines from accessing irrelevant or sensitive areas of your website.
Duplicate Content Management: Technical SEO helps in managing duplicate content issues through canonical tags, which specify the preferred version of a webpage.
On-page, off-page SEO and technical SEO are all integral to a comprehensive SEO strategy, ensuring a balanced approach to improving your website’s search engine rankings and online presence.
Off-page SEO limitations
Despite being fundamental, off-page SEO has its own limitations, such as the lack of direct control over how other sites mention yours.
In addition, changes in search engine algorithms – that happen very often, from small daily changes to more significant updates a few times a year - can hinder the effectiveness of off-page SEO strategies.
Impoving off-page SEO
An effective Off-page SEO strategy involves creating high-quality content to attract natural links, actively participating in social media to increase online visibility and reputation and looking for partnership opportunities with other relevant sites to obtain backlinks. If you’re looking for ways to develop off-page SEO, here are 7 tested initiatives.
1. Build a strong backlink strategy
Working on quality, not quantity, of back links is one of the main off-page SEO strategies for a brand. There are 3 main types of backlinks that can be used in a brand's marketing strategy to increase its engagement externally and improve its ranking in web search engines.
Natural links - links added on external websites by someone’s own initiative. These are organic external references.
Manually built links - planned backlink consisting of talking to customers, influencers and other third parties, and asking them to create links leading to the brand's website.
Self-created links - add links to the brand's website in online directories, forums, signatures in blog comments and press releases.
2. Engage with influencers
Influencers and other third parties attract audiences and help boost relevance and authority in a brand by generating shares and comments on a given topic. Oftentimes, contact starts by email or DM/private message, and then asking them to share or be a part of a branded content piece.
3. Guest blogging
An effective way to share a brand's message is to associate third parties (e.g. top bloggers or other relevant people in your industry) with the brand's corporate blog, inviting them to write opinion articles.
Guest blogging allows companies to expand their networks, increase engagement on social media, strengthen the brand’s backlink profile, increase brand awareness and generate qualified leads.
4. Forum Posting
Brands looking to develop their off-page SEO should select relevant forums where their products or/and services are being discussed. There, they can interact with users, offering professional answers that show expertise on the topic.
This way, brands are in touch with potential customers and digital marketers, deepen the understanding of users’ needs. Being present on these types of external platforms increases the perception of authority and quality of the brand.
5. List your business
Adding your business to listings can be vital to increasing brand reputation, ranking, and revenue. Adding brand details on high Domain Authority sites like Google My Business ensures greater exposure and traffic.
6. Analyze the competition
Some tools enable marketers to analyze which external sites are linking to their competitors' pages. After identifying the most promising ones, you can reach out to these sites and propose they link to your high-quality content instead. This strategy can significantly boost your site’s visibility and authority in search engine rankings.
7. Create high-quality content marketing
Your own content marketing can go beyond borders. Engaging formats such as thought-provoking blog posts, dynamic infographics, or comprehensive e-books are more likely to be shared widely, reposted, or cited as sources. This widespread dissemination not only extends your reach but also significantly increases your website's authority.
Articulate, off page SEO experts
Our approach to off-page SEO has consistently delivered transformative results for our clients, ranging from engineering firms to educational foundations, and even online car dealerships.
Engineering firm
For a leading engineering firm, our journey began with a meticulous analysis to identify partner publications within their niche that held the highest authority. Recognizing the power of authoritative backlinks - the sixth strongest predictor of a webpage’s ranking position - we strategically reached out to these publications, collaborating to create tailored content that resonated with their audiences.
Educational Foundation
Similarly, for Fundação José Neves, a leading educational foundation in Portugal, our strategy hinged on leveraging relationships with key partners. We crafted a comprehensive social sharing kit and engaging blog posts, designed specifically for these partners to share on their platforms.
Managing this project from inception to execution, we ensured that the content was not only shared but also aligned with the foundation’s mission, amplifying their educational message and reach.
Online dealership
The strategy for an online car dealership required a nuanced approach. We adapted their existing blog content to fit the context of other partner dealerships, ensuring that links were integrated with strategic keywords. This helped in enhancing their SEO strategy and drove targeted traffic back to their site from multiple sources, broadening their customer base and strengthening their online presence.
Through these diverse yet tailored strategies, we showed that effective off-page SEO is not just about link-building—it’s about creating meaningful partnerships and content that truly resonates with the audience. Each success story is a testament to the power of well-executed digital marketing strategies that align with our clients' core goals and industry standards. Get in touch with our team of expert SEO managers.